<p>Is UC Berkeley underrated? Should it be among the top 10?</p>
<p>It should possibly be higher, but the way U.S. News ranks a public university will never make the top 20.</p>
<p>Berkeley offers a fantastic education with an extremely broad range of academic programs and a faculty whose collective achievements are only rivaled by those faculties at Harvard and Stanford.
That being said, Berkeley does not offer the same resources of its private peer rivals - especially to undergrads. It is a sink or swim environment that can be large and impersonal, and can be likened to a buffet…you serve yourself.</p>
<p>I loved the independence but Berkeley will not be a good fit for everyone. Being a public university that has only 10% out-of-state students, it is viewed as more provincial to the rest of the US. This may change as Berkeley expands out-of-state admissions. Like all universities it does have its strengths and weaknesses.</p>
<p>Ever since Berkeley ran an old TV ad, I thought Berkeley alum Joan Didion said it best:
“What Berkeley offered me was infinite. Without Berkeley, the world I know would be more ordered, less risky, but not the world I wanted…Not free…Not Berkeley…Not me.”
You can look up the ad on Youtube by searching for “The Promise of Berkeley”…It’s by far the best Berkeley PSA.</p>
<p>I think it should be top 10 (of course I’m biased)…and an opinion poll of over 2,000 academics agree.</p>
<p>Just be happy you’re going to the best public university.</p>
<p>Berkley is a top-notch institution. However, if we are talking about undergraduate, then I think we need to reevaluate calling it a top 10 school. Overall, in terms of everything, undergraduate, graduate, research, etc. yes, it is a top 10 school. But for undergraduate, probably not. And yes we are all biased. Unlike UCBChemEGrad, I am firmly in the camp that a smaller, more intimate learning environment (at schools like LACs and hybrid schools) provide the best undergraduate experience. But that in now way is meant to disparage Berkley as an institution.</p>
<p>love the berkeley bashing and people pleasing at the same time thing.</p>
<p>
Berkley is a top 10 school overall.
For undergraduate purposes, I would put it 30ish.
How is that people pleasing?</p>
<p>There is something called being diplomatic, and for the record you have contributed nothing to this discussion.</p>
<p>For undergraduate education, I have consistently applied four main criteria in evaluating a school’s academic environment:</p>
<ol>
<li> The quality of the student body</li>
<li> The size of the classroom </li>
<li> The quality of the classroom instruction</li>
<li> The financial resources and the institution’s willingness to use them to support undergraduates</li>
</ol>
<p>Given the above,
- Student body Quality: I think that there are more than 20 national universities that have student bodies equal to or better than Berkeley. In addition, when you factor in the quality of the large numbers of transfers, it is almost a certainty that the UCB student body is statistically weaker than what is reported on USNWR. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Class sizes: The class size data speaks for itself and there are definitely more than 20 with a superior profile on this metric. </p></li>
<li><p>Quality of Classroom Instruction: Much to my surprise (and probably as well to many UCB supporters), UC Berkeley was ranked as one of the colleges offering a high commitment to classroom teaching. Combined with the reputation of the faculty among the academic world, this is a very powerful argument. Certainly here UCB deserves to be in the Top 20 and maybe the Top 10.</p></li>
<li><p>Financial Resources & willingness to spend on undergrads: This is going to be a problem in the future. The state is very, very, very squeezed and resources for undergrads almost certainly will be as well. While the endowment is still relatively large, it’s not on a per capita basis and the likelihood is that this will get worse. UCB is best known for its grad programs and these are likely to be the last programs that get cut. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, IMO UCB is not underrated nor underranked for undergraduate education. It’s a high quality option for California students, but in competition nationally with all undergraduate colleges, it deserves its place outside of the Top 20. Furthermore, such a view is actually good news for American college students because it reflects the fact that there are many outstanding college options all across the USA.</p>
<p>Agreed Hawkette,</p>
<p>Worse still, the financial pressures have caused a state mandated increase in the number of accepted OOS, (in order to capture the higher tuition payments). Reports are that there will be no drop in the number of slots for Californians, so you will be adding more students to a system while not adding any new facilities or resources. That’s certainly not a formula for ongoing excellence.</p>
<p>This is a problem affecting all states not just California. The bigger question may be how will the reputations of all the publics be affected if these cutbacks last too long?</p>
<p>When discussing Berkeley’s ratings or rankings, one cannot isolate it from its true peers, namely schools such as Michigan and UCLA. </p>
<p>Do all three of those public schools deserve a higher ranking? And if they do, which of the schools that are currently ranked higher by the USNews should be “demoted?” And, most importantly, which criteria should be used to justify the demotion of one to three schools and the promotion of the public schools? </p>
<p>Unless more fiddling with the PA is incorporated --or the final admission that the rankings are no longer a Best College ranking-- a drastic change in the USNews rankings should represent a tall order, even for Bob Morse who loves to level the playing field with … intangibles. </p>
<p>When evaluating Berkeley in its entirety, and that means including its massive graduate programs and its world-class research, there can’t be any questions that it is easily among the best ten research universities in the world, perhaps among the best three or five. </p>
<p>But THAT is exactly what muddies the waters when discussing the UG realm at Berkeley as there is a world of difference between a regional and provincial UG and its world-class graduate student body and faculty.</p>
<p>
That maybe true, but the 20 colleges ranked higher than Berkeley are all smaller privates. Normalize the SAT averages for undergrad population size to see which colleges are under/over performing in attracting the “best and brightest”. With larger population sample size, SAT averages should revert to national averages. You’re not comparing apples to apples.</p>
<p>In my opinion, Berkeley isn’t underrated, but it is underranked by a few league tables especially, USNews. </p>
<p>Berkeley is a clear top 10 academic institutions in the US or the world. Very few schools in the whole universe can rival Berkeley’s prestige and achievement towards the advancement of education and scholarly research. It has been the melting pot of innovations, inventions and cutting-edge research that make the life that we now live much better.</p>
<p>RML, Berkeley is most definitely NOT “under-ranked” by USNews. Actually, without its questionable (because of the inclusion of intangibles) PA, it would be ranked a bit lower. Perhaps, you should ask yourself why, despite its spot among the world best known universities, despite a “convenient selectivity index”, its undergraduate ranking CANNOT be massaged any higher. Perhaps, you should also remember that 75% or more of Berkeley’s enrolled UG students are not competitive with the enrolled students at the schools you love to compare to Berkeley, and especially not in your “top” ten. </p>
<p>All in all, Berkeley is treated EXTREMELY well by the USNews editors. </p>
<p>And your second point, while true, is not germane to the issue of undergraduate rankings.</p>
<p>hewkette, I seem to question some of your criteria. I think some of them need to be expounded. Let’s go over them one-by-one.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How do you rate the quality of the student body?
What is the cut-off point for a student body to be assessed or categorized as tier 1 or group 1, if you happen to be categorizing them in order to achieve your goal?</p>
<p>I would categorized Berkeley’s undergrad student body Tier 2. But it’s because of some undergrad students with poorer GPA, SAT scores and focus to his/her studies hat they accept in response to complying the call of the State. But there are very few schools that make up my tier 1, and these are: HYPSM + Caltect. </p>
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<p>Can you be more specific? What are your divisions and subdivisions for class sizes? For example, a faculty-to-student ratio of 1:7 isn’t actually better than a faculty-to-student ratio of 1:9, is it? So, I think you have to subdivide ratios first, and of course, make an argument why division 1 is better than division 2 and so on. For example, faculty-to-student ratio of 1:1 is division 1. a 1:2 - 1:5 is division 2. a 1:6 - 1:12 is division 3. a 1:13 -1:20 is division 4, and so on. </p>
<p>Why do I insist that you have to subdivide this? It’s because ratios within a certain limit has the same effect to the quality of teaching and learning experience. That’s the essence of identifying the ratio for this case. </p>
<p>
Berkeley performed very well on this area. In the last survey done by USNews, Berkeley performed very well that it made it to the top 10 overall.</p>
<p>
I’m glad you finally acknowledge that now. But had it not for the USNews survey, I’m sure you’re still very active in countering Cal people’s confession on here that they’ve had a great time at Berkeley, meeting their expectations in terms of feeding them the knowledge they need. I remember I once told you that my wife had a great time at Berkeley and her expectations from her profs have been met 100%. And you responded that statement with something like - she’s one of the very few who probably have learned much from the school. See? You’ve speculated too much and I’m glad that you feel sorry for doing it now. Word of advice: please don’t speculate or judge too much next time specially of you have not attended the school. </p>
<p>
I would still say that Berkeley has higher structural and research spending per student than many elite schools. Aside from the tuition generated by the school from its students, the university earns from endowment, alumni donations, corporate sponsored projects and from the GOVERNMENT. The stats which were just released by Washington Monthly showed that Berkeley has a huge budget for research - maybe first amongst its peer schools when budget for med school is separated. </p>
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<p>I beg to differ.</p>
<p>Berkeley is superior to Notre Dame, Emory, Vanderbilt and is probably equal to Rice, Cornell and the like, for undergrad. I cannot see how those schools are better than Berkeley. For one thing, they’re not as prestigious. For another, they’re not as good in terms of the academic standard (Check the PA score of USNews. PA measures prestige and academic standard). And lastly, they’re graduates are not as sought after and paid more. (Check the Forbes salary listing of these schools.)</p>
<p>xiggi, </p>
<p>the problem with your reasoning is that - you depend too much on the quality of the students in ranking institutions. By doing that, you failed to realize that you have in effect insulted the caliber of the professors/lecturers/academic staff/etc… because it’s their duty to educate students. If they couldn’t do that, then they’re not good faculty. And they are essentially part of the university that we are assessing. Apart from that, you failed to factor in facilities. By facilities, I mean high-tech labs, state-of-the-art equipment, extensive volumes of books, easy access to the internet, PCs available to students and the like. Then of course, you failed to factor in the opportunities that the schools provide to their graduates, such as salary scale and positions held by alumni.</p>
<p>
That’s because some of USNews’ criteria are questionable. If only they have made the criteria right, schools like Emory, Vanderbilt and Notre Dame would not have overtaken Berkeley, or UPenn would not have equaled Stanford and MIT, or Stanford would have broken the triumvirate of HYP, or Washington U would not have ranked higher than Brown and so on.</p>
<p>
My thoughts exactly.</p>
<p>
Again, I do not want someone teaching me whose primary goal is there own personal research. You can not spin it any other way, professors at research powerhouse schools are paid to research and publish–not educate. </p>
<p>Everyone in this thread is clearly very confused, because we are talking about undergraduate quality versus institution overall quality. The latter is a moot point, because I think we can all agree Berkley is a world-renowned institution. However, there are 20-25 other schools I would chose over it for undergraduate quality.</p>
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<p>Says how much you know… I don’t want to be the one talking more about this… just check on the data of USNews about teaching standard. There they rank the schools that offer the best teaching experience or something like that, and much to hawkette’s surprise (and all those Berkeley bashers on CC), Berkeley did extremely well - within the top 10 in the nation.</p>
<p>So, what’s your next excuse? Funding? Name me more than 20 schools that have higher funding that Berkeley has.</p>
<p>RML,
Our prior interactions notwithstanding, I don’t consider myself a Berkeley basher. In fact, along with U Virginia and W&M, I consider UCB one of the top 3 public universities for undergraduate education. And if you reread my earlier comments about UCB’s recognition for teaching, you will see that I place the school in the Top 20 for sure and perhaps even the Top 10.</p>
<p>One key difference between us is the value that we accord to prestige within academia. As a grad student, you understandably place high value on this. As an employer, I couldn’t care less. For me, prestige among academia and a buck will buy you a cup of coffee. I care FAR more about student quality and their preparedness upon graduation. I fully recognize that UCB has many high quality students and I applaud that although I hope you will agree that their student body is not as uniformly strong as many top privates (including some of the ones you attempt to demote). My comments are about the student body as a whole and not about the attractiveness of a subset of students. </p>
<p>As for your funding contentions, would you please connect this comment to how it affects undergraduate students and especially those 75-80% of undergrads who are not involved in engineering/sciences?</p>
<p>Hawkette, </p>
<p>first of all, we are assessing an academic institution here. As such, it’s not a well thought-out idea to be excluding other factors (such as faculty caliber, learning effectiveness, facilities and employment prospects), that are just as important, if not far more important, when assessing the general efficiency of the institution. Factoring all the criteria I’ve just mentioned, I’m confident Berkeley will place very highly in league tables.</p>
<p>
99% of Cal students belong to the top 10% of their graduating HS class and having an average SAT score of about 2,000. How is that not a very good student body for you? </p>
<p>
Berkeley grads are some of the highest earners in the nation, and probably the world. In the latest survey for salaries by Forbes, Berkeley landed number 12 in the whole nation, beating 3 ivy league schools, namely: Cornell, Brown and Columbia plus several elite privates such as Chicago, Northwestern, Rice and Johns Hopkins. Needless to say Washington U, Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and schools like those. If Berkeley grads aren’t well-prepared to take on very high responsibilities in their profession, or lead organizations, they wouldn’t make as much as what they’re actually making now which is one of the highest in the US or probably the world, would they?</p>
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<p>No, actually, as wilmington wave said, the true duty of the tenure-track faculty of any major research university of which Berkeley is clearly one is to conduct research. If your research output is not strong, you’re not going to be promoted to tenure and you’re not going to win recognition amongst your academic peers. On the other hand, excellent teachers can and have been denied tenure. </p>
<p>The problem is also largely sociological. Even if Berkeley were to emphasize teaching more, relative to research, the fact remains that the other major research universities won’t, and if you’re denied tenure at Berkeley, you’re going to need to find a placement at one of those other universities, which you will not be able to obtain if your research output was subpar. Hence, the dominant strategy will always be to spend as much effort as possible on research, and shortchange teaching.</p>
<p>Where I would agree with you is that this is an endemic problem amongst all research universities and is not a problem specific to Berkeley. </p>
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<p>I don’t have the latest USNews. Why don’t you post this information, and especially, its methodology?</p>
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<p>Obviously, relatively speaking to the vast majority of other schools in the country, Cal’s student body is exceptional. </p>
<p>However, we’re not comparing Cal to the vast majority of other schools. To compare Cal against Southwest Missouri State is not a serious comparison at all. We’re comparing Cal to the very best schools. If Cal is indeed amongst the very best schools in the world, then it should have an undergraduate student body to match. </p>
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<p>I’ve always found Payscale figures to be extremely suspect because they include only those students who earn bachelor’s degrees, which introduces a strong selection bias, for many of the top private schools send a large proportion of their students to lucrative graduate/professional schools.</p>